


Sparks Joy

by Nadia_Hernandez



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, KonMari | Marie Kondo's Tidying Method, Love, Marriage, Short & Sweet, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 04:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18003830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadia_Hernandez/pseuds/Nadia_Hernandez
Summary: Amy thinks hard about the things that spark joy.





	Sparks Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Brooklyn 99... have I told you, lately, that I love you? And back for a seventh season. Yeah!

Ever since it had been published in 2015 Amy Santiago had been a fan of Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up. No, to say that she had been a fan would be to lessen the book’s importance, even to denigrate the influence it had exerted upon her life. It would be perhaps more accurate, although a trifle breathless, to describe her relationship with the book, and Kondo’s philosophy as a whole, as being like that of a particularly dedicated medieval monk and his illuminated manuscript. She read a passage or two each day, before getting ready for work, and put its principles into action in ways both large and small. Although she had not prayed over the text--yet, she said to herself half-joking--some of her study sessions did border of reverant.

It wasn’t her fault, not really. She was an obsessive person by nature and had been passionate about organization for as long as she could remember. Each doll was typed by hair color, dress color and favorite jelly, which little Amy knew even if other people were not privvy to such knowledge. The picture books on her shelf were organized first by height and then, once she learned how to read, by the first letter of the author’s first name. In this system The Little Critter came before Busytown, in this way, and the Berenstain Bears before Dr. Seuss. Where the Wild Things are seemed to fall where it would on the shelf, regardless Amy’s efforts, and although she loved it she did not pick it up very often. She was a child who found herself ill-at-ease among Wild Things and, as an adult, still preferred turning into bed with a good book and her sweet, silly husband before the Wild Rumpus could begin.

She remembered once, when she must have been six or seven years old, pilfering a step-ladder from her dad’s workshop and stacking her toys in a pyramid twice her own height. Her small, round face, she remembered, had seemed to shine with the transport of righteous effort in the Minnie Mouse vanity’s mirror in her bedroom. It was hard work, sure, but no art came without suffering. She had learned the words in her art history courses in college but gleaned the substance of the message in her room that day while she placed Polly Pocket, the Littlest Pet Shop and Power Rangers in an interlocking column.

Her dad appeared at the door, behind her, and waiting until she climbed down before saying anything. “You’ve done a good job.”

She beamed, proud of herself, and stated that no girl in Queens could have as well organized a collection of toys. Pride may have been unbecoming, or at least Sister Gloria said at the children’s church lessons before Mass, but a little bit could surely be forgiven for such an edifice.

Her father offered his crooked, Jimmy Smits smile. “That’s probably true, mija… but I’m going to need my ladder back, soon, and when I do… how are you going to get your Power Rangers down?” They were stacked at the top.

A crestfallen Amy could find no answer and, devastated, set about dismantling the eighth wonder of the world. Detective Victor Santiago was a good egg, though, and helped his daughter at the task.

So yeah, you could say that Amy Santiago lived for organization, she loved it, she breathed and worshiped it. Organizing things was writ into the very fabric of her at the level of the protein things in her DNA. How was it, then, that the most beloved thing in her house, the one that sparked the purest most absolute joy, was the biggest mess?

 

She spared a glance at her husband. He was consumed with his new hobby of building models of famous buildings in action movies. Nakatomi Plaza had been first, of course, and stood in a gluey pile of plastic on their mantel piece. He was working diligently now on the White House from Olympus Has Fallen and planned, next, on doing the bus from speed. “Not technically a building,” he had told her, “but totally worth it. It’s a classic, total classic.” She was fairly sure he wouldn’t make it that far before his attention wandered to the next shiny object, might not even finish the White House, but whatever kept the kid off the streets and out of gangs, right?

He worked feverishly, an eternal fifth grader tapping new additions onto his clubhouse or jazz virtuoso blissing himself out with new, as yet undiscovered scales on the saxophone. She remembered another hobby of his, LARPing from DC Parlov with Charles and Terry. That had been fun and gone well until Terry, a little too enthused and unaware of his prodigious power when so, had struck poor Charles a wooden sword blow that had still be almost enough to cut him in half. The Noble Knights of Skyfire had disbanded, then, and Terry had made up for it by offering Charles more grotesque cuts of offal than a butcher could easily count.

He flicked his eyes towards her. “Whatcha doing, Ames? Is that an, uh… creepy stare or a sexy one? Cause sexy would be better. Although creepy could work, too, as long as it’s Morticia creepy and not The Hills Have Eyes creepy.”

“Neither.” She shrugged. “Wistful, mostly.”

“Ah.” He turned back to his model. “Glad you’re full of wists, then. That’s awesome. Now I’ve gotta figure out how to get Lincoln into the Lincoln bedroom.”

“I don’t think Lincoln is actually still in the Lincoln bedroom, babe.”

“That’s what they want you to think!”

She snorted laughter. “Okay, then. Have fun. And that stare might turn sexy later on…”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tempt me away from my work, temptress?”

“Could be…”

“Well, it’s working.”

She laughed now, full and deep like he always made her. “Go on with your model--Lincoln has to sleep somewhere and I don’t want him watching us later. That would be creepy.”

He did and for another long moment she watched him. He was disorganized and personified mess but yes he did spark so, so much joy.


End file.
